High CPU usage in Chinee Kong - will this be fixed?

[woodamand]

I'm sure its not just me, but as much as I love using ChineeKong, it is the worst CPU hog of any of my VSTIs, which seems strange to me since all it is doing is playing back samples (I don't use any of the fx or things like that). I mean I can see my sequencer just slow down (Project 5 here but also Sonar) as it loads the plugin. And this is true even if its the only track that is loaded in the project.
Please note I have an Athlon 64 bit 3000+ machine with 2 gigs of RAM, and that should surely be enough to run this plugin.
thx

[sosayweall]

Hi Dana. We are shocked to hear that. AFAIK,it shouldn't be such a CPU hog at all. I'll check with Shan to see if he has any clue what may have caused this.

In the mean time, just a side note and not really an excuse, but samplers/drum-machines do eat CPU though. I learned my lessons with some commercial plugins in the past...no name will be mentioned here. That said, the performance of ChineeKong on your PC is definitely not normal, and we'll look into it.

A few workarounds for you before we get back on this later:

• Use the Multi Out mode, as that will bypass the internal FX of ChineeKong.
  
  Eliminating the unnecessarily overlapping MIDI notes will usually help alot as welll.

*To other regged users of ChineeKong who use Cakewlk hosts that are experiencing the similiar issue, please let us know too. or we'll go out and bring you in for questioning...

[woodamand]

OK, I will try that next time I run it.......I like the bring you in for questioning, maybe I should check that out, I have never been to Hong Kong but I hear the Chinese food there rocks!
thanks!

[woodamand]

Well - multi out does not work for me, if I choose anything other than mix out, I get no sound at all, either in Sonar 4.04 or Project 5 V2.
I am using an m-audio audiophile 24/96 if that makes a difference.
Very frustrating! It as if multi out is not passing any signal thru the plug in, nothing shows up in the meters in the sonar mixer with this option checked.
thanks

[Gregjazz]

I only have 512 MB ram (yes, I'm going to upgrade ASAP, especially since my computer has space for 4 GB of ram) and ChineeKong works really well, even multiple instances of it. If it starts to strain your CPU, just remember to start freezing tracks as soon as possible. The nice thing about freezing tracks is that you can unfreeze them, returning the MIDI data and everything, whereas if you mix it down you won't be able to go back unless you have an earlier version backed up.

[woodamand]

Oh yeah, freezing works great and I use it all the time but I think there must be something else going on here, since again I see on my system much higher CPU usage than things like Reaktor, Kontakt2, etc....

[sosayweall]

Dana, I was told that to utilize multiout plugins in Sonar, you need to enable 'all synth output' from the Synth Rack. Probably have to check against Sonar/P5's manaul for the details.

Shan said the high CPU usage could be that you are loading up old projects with the updated plugin. Could you give it a try to see if you start a new project from the scratch and the problem still exists? Did the CPU spike like zigzags? If so, that might be caused by the hard drive.

@Greg: Thanks!

[woodamand]

OK, that might work in Sonar, I will have to check in P5. Related to this, I had a slight problem when I installed the latest small update, I don't see the correct version number. What would be the safest way to uninstall and reinstall this, so that I wouldn't have to go thru getting re-registered?
thanks and let me say I appreciate - a lot - the responsiveness that you have to my questions. Not all vendors are quite so nice!

[sosayweall]

Dana, generally speaking, as long as you don't change hardware parts, you don't have to get a new authorization code. So just go ahead and install/uninstall as you wish.

If you ever visit us, we will show you how nice we really are - we'll buy you some delicious pig feet...

[woodamand]

Great! Maybe best for me to uninstall and reinstall before I do anything else then.
And pig feet are good with me, my wife makes great sauerkraut and pigs feet and for sure part of that, so I will glady take you up on your offer. You go for chicken feet too? I used to live for years in San Francisco, so me and Chinese food are old friends, ya know?
thanks and I will let you know the results when I have made the changes

[Frunobulax]

I've experienced this sluggishness with both ChineeKong and ChineeWinds in Project 5 v.2, Sonar 4 and Sonar 5. I'm also using a Audiophile 24/96 card. I didn't notice the CPU being taxed so much as just having everything get real sluggish when one of these plugs is loaded.

My workaround has been to load eXT up in Sonar and then open ChineeKong or ChineeWinds in eXT, and everything seems to work ok then.

So if other Sonar/Project 5 users are not experiencing the same problem, perhaps it is the combination of the Cakewalk wrapper and the Audiophile 2496 card that causes and issue with the Kong Audio plugs?

Anyone using these without this problem in Sonar or Project 5? How about with the Audiophile 24/96?

Let us know how the reinstall works woodamand.

[sosayweall]

Thanks for the helpful info, Frunobulax. AFAIK, it seems that SE has some problems with all the Cakewalk's hosts. Since their demos don't come with the VST adapter, I have no way to have a closer look. But I still suspect there are some kind of configuration options in the VST adapter that can be adjusted to handle SE (probably plus some other plugins as well) plugins more gracefully.

@Dana, Ah. I forgot that pig feet are a more widely accepted edible item in the West. Oh yes, chicken feet are great snack, especially suitable for movie-goers...

[woodamand]

You know I should have said sluggish - thats much closer actually to what I meant. I don't know if it has anything to do with Synth Edit tho, since I use at least one SE delay plugin constantly and have never seen this behavior.
I bet energy XT would help but I don't like the idea of paying and extra $50 just to make my expensive sequencers work correctly.
thanks for the clarification

[Frunobulax]

I don't know if it has anything to do with Synth Edit tho, since I use at least one SE delay plugin constantly and have never seen this behavior.

I also use other SE plugs without experiencing this problem, so it doesn't look like all SE creations exhibit this behavior.

I have experienced a similar problem with ConcreteFX plugs, but those of course aren't SE.

[Kongaudio]

Well - multi out does not work for me, if I choose anything other than mix out, I get no sound at all, either in Sonar 4.04 or Project 5 V2.
I am using an m-audio audiophile 24/96 if that makes a difference.
Very frustrating! It as if multi out is not passing any signal thru the plug in, nothing shows up in the meters in the sonar mixer with this option checked.
thanks

hi ,woodamand,good to hear you like our chineekong plugins,i see you got "no sounds"problems ,please read this for Sonar User:
1)install Chineekong program (any version)
2)Run Cakewalk vst adapter again

if any chineekong update version out ,you need do it every time.
Cakewalk vst adapter is important for sonar user.
if you press Play/Record button get some delay,it isn't your computer get slow ,our chineekong plugin have this problem's clearly, but it just some delay.
it isn't about cpu or ram memory's size.

if still no sounds or get high cpu usage:
1)how many patchs use
2)two or three ... filter fx's power on
3)see high cpu keep or it brokenly ..

any problem ,please write email to us or talk in this
forum,we'll do best